Teacher Resources
Classroom Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Resources
- Classroom Strategies for Promoting DEI: In Spring 2022, NCTC held a series of workshops, facilitated by educators Corey Mitchell and Sidney Horton. We’ve compiled takeaways from those conversations that may help you assess your program and deepen your work to make a more inclusive classroom.
- Howlround: Anti-Racist Theatre Resources: A selection of content that calls out systemic racism in theatre and points toward anti-racist practices.
- New Jersey Theatre Alliance Anti-Racism Resources: Essays, articles, books, movies, and theatre-specific resources about diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism.
- We See You, White American Theatre: Demands from BIPOC (Black, Indegenous, and People of Color) American theatre-makers to address the scope and pervasiveness of anti-Blackness and racism in the American theater.
- How to Make Anti-Racist Theatre: A Variety podcast with Nicole Brewer on what anti-racist theatre might look like. Brewer is a freelance theatermaker and anti-racist educator.
- Talking About Race: Tools from the National Museum of African American History & Culture for talking about race.
The NCTC Diversity Equity and Inclusion Resource Hub: NCTC has gathered resources from across disciplines to help our members and our theatre community to find best practices for framing their ongoing work through a diversity, equity and inclusion lens.
Playwriting & Playcutting
Public Domain Resources
While a comprehensive list of public domain works is impossible to detail here, some highlights include:
- The complete works of William Shakespeare
- The complete works of Gilbert and Sullivan
- The complete work of Charles Dickens
- The complete works of Jane Austen
- All of Grimms’ fairy tales
- All of the classic Greek dramas (Sophocles, Euripedes, etc)
Not to mention Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, Edgar Allen Poe, Frank L. Baum, and so many more. Just browse the Top 100 Books on Project Gutenberg for dozens of recognizable titles whose copyrights have expired and passed into the public domain. Public domain works are all available for adaptation without obtaining any rights.
Resources for Finding Public Domain Plays
Below we’ve included a number of sources where you can find material available in the public domain. NOTE: Only original source material may be adapted or cut. You cannot use a published adaptation or cutting of a public domain source. That new published material is protected by copyright. Occasionally, these sources may link to works that are NOT in the public domain. Do your due diligence to ensure that you select work that is in the public domain already, or that you’re performing a new or unpublished adaptation of source material that is in the public domain. If you’re uncertain, please contact us and we can help guide you.
- The Internet Classics Archive: 441 searchable works of classical literature
- The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
- Shakespeare Online
- Public Domain Search
- Wikimedia Commons
- Welcome to Europeana
- Digital Collections, Available Online | Library of Congress
- Free Play Scripts! | The Drama Teacher
- Dramatix Scripts
- Plays for Kids-Royalty-free Play Scripts for Schools
- Good School Plays
- Selected Plays in the Public Domain | Ohio Wesleyan University/Project Gutenberg
More Info About Public Domain
Teacher Toolkits
NCTC K–12 Advocacy Toolkit
Advocacy is building awareness and public support for a cause. It is essential that each of us learn to speak for our programs and for arts education. So many of the people who make policy are not educators or artists – we have much to teach them. Participating in the NCTC Play Festival provides opportunities before and after the Festival that can help you advocate for your program. Our Advocacy toolkit provides ideas and tactics for the classroom, for parents, your school and school district, and your community.
Remember, you are the first and best advocate for your program!
